Those of The Greatest Generation are now 80+ years old. We refer to them as "the elderly." We recoil in fear at their inability to see and hear, their varicose veins, their armpit-high pants, their lack of hair where it ought to be and the proliferation where it oughtn't. We don't simply fear it because it is inherently strange to our youthful values, but mainly because we know that someday the same fate will befall us.
I am here today to tell you that it won't. We will look/act nothing like our grandparents and their acquaintances. No, my friends, our future elderly selves will at best minimally reflect The Greatest Generation we have seen age before us.
Our generation will be much worse. In our old age, we will be the ugliest, crudest, unhealthiest (and in turn most expensive), most unpleasant elderly generation the world has ever seen.
Let's begin with external appearances. In 60 years, most born around the millennium will take one of two completely opposite paths. Those who end up making good money in their careers and save a lot of it will go the plastic surgery route, and will end up looking as bad as or worse than the likes of Joan Rivers. These alien-like wax figures will line the beaches of The Hamptons and the streets of Beverly Hills, with collagen-infused fish lips and neck skin sagging halfway down their backs from facelift after facelift. Those who can't afford to niptuck themselves into oblivion will go the au natural route and, given the current appearances of my peers, I'm not sure which is more frightening. I recently patronized Six Flags- Magic Mountain (an amusement park) and was absolutely astounded by the amount of tattoo-age I witnessed. Almost every single person there was sporting a visible tattoo, but what really struck me was the raw percentage of skin covered in ink. Nearly half the people I saw had some sort of sleeve, and probably 7% had tattoos going all the way up their necks. Including females. Though I do not have any tattoos, I am by no means a denouncer of them- but WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GOING TO LOOK LIKE IN 50 YEARS? Have you ever seen a tattoo on an old person? It's not a common sight, but if you have, you know they have the appearance of prune-like, dark green cancer growths. If you think getting that Marvin the Martian tattoo on your tricep forever is a good idea, think again. And while we're on the subject of the epidermis, I think it's worth mentioning that our obsession with tanning (and even worse, fake tanning) will have us all looking like Texas Longhorn burnt-orange leather sacks if the melanomas don't do us in first. Add to that to the copious amount of chemicals we slather onto our heads (aka "hair care products") and acidic concoctions that allow us to merely "apply and just wipe the hair away!" and you've got yourself one torn up group of people over years of exposure. Let's face it- my generation is on the fast track to looking like the product of some subhuman, Twilight Zone science experiment.
Another aspect of outward appearance (and inward health) many fail to take into consideration is weight gain over time. As most of us know, the CDC has declared 1/3 of American adults today are obese. You may be thinking, so what? A lot of old people are overweight as well. While this is true, it is easy to forget that most members of The Greatest Generation were quite thin until they reached old age and their metabolisms puttered out. I know a lot of us experienced that moment as young children when we saw an old photograph of our grandparents and asked, heartbreakingly to them, "Who is that?" But WE are starting out fat- and neither science nor precedent can predict the effect that is going to have on both the individual and society. The only thing we can be sure of is that my generation will have more health problems (diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, high cholesterol, etc etc etc) thanks to a preventable condition. If you're pissed off about having to foot the baby boomers' Medicare bill, just think of the burden we're going to place on our children. The only potential brightside is that since we will be so fat and unhealthy, maybe we won't live long enough to leach off America's taxpayers for too long.
No matter, it's what's on the inside that counts, right? Well, if that's true, we're doubly screwed. Today's elderly population has a reputation of being nice, kindly, and for the most part mild-tempered. Though they may be boring to those who don't appreciate history, nostalgia, or just the plain good ol' days, at least they are pleasant to be around. Why? Because they were brought up with manners, respect, and social graces that we seem to have since lost. Girls: How often do you hear sweet little old ladies drop the F-bomb? And how often do you hear your friends drop it, along with a plethora of other profanities? Fellas: You're a little different. Grandpa may have had quite the swearing vocabulary, which we'll blame on the military during WWII. But how often did you hear them cuss in the presence of the fairer sex? And how often do YOU cuss in front of, or even at, girls? There's a huge discrepancy here. Not only will our mannerisms be completely detestable, but so will our overall dispositions. We are the "me generation," we are selfish and think we are entitled to everything. Our grandkids can forget about grandma and grandpa spoiling them like we used to be spoiled. We sure as hell aren't going to go out of our way to make some little snot-nosed punk happy, even if he/she is our descendant. The Greatest Generation and even the baby boomers (though to a lesser extent) have a real consideration for the welfare of others. We do not. It's all about us.
So, as we live our lives fashioning our futures to be wholly ugly elderly folk, I guess we can find solace in one thing: if mankind continues to develop on this same path, our kids and grandkids will be exponentially more ugly and crude (inside and out) than we are, so perhaps by twisted comparison, we will seem as great to them as The Greatest Generation was to us.
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